20 PRACTICAL PHEASANT REARING. 



pepper. This is a useful hint for the housewife, but 

 the keeper must adopt quite opposite tactics, and, as 

 the hens come on brooding, keep changing them up 

 towards one end, always on the china eggs, so as to 

 get your quietest hens together ; this will save much 

 trouble in the long run. The china eggs do not make 

 the nest in a mess, however rough the old mother is 

 and hens are most of them, especially pullets sitting 

 for the first time, excessively turbulent at the com- 

 mencement of the incubatory process. When the 

 eggs always feel hot, at whatever time you go and 

 feel them, then the hen can be trusted, and not 

 before. Feed your hens on Indian corn and barley, 

 cold meal and water for a change; meat and hundred- 

 headed cabbage or other green food boiled up is also 

 good for them if you can afford it. They should 

 always have a run on turf of a morning, and also on 

 a road if possible. If this is inconvenient, let them 

 be supplied with plenty of " grit " instead. 



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